Making Lemonade
by Dayja
Summary: Life has given Harry a lot of lemons: dead parents, a cupboard under the stairs, horrible clothes, Harry Hunting. The result should have been a downtrodden, sad little boy. It isn't.
1. Pre-Hogwarts

Disclaimer: I do not own/am not associated with/make no money from _Harry Potter_.

**The Story**

Harry Potter was almost four years old when his aunt took him into the kitchen and told him to make lemonade. Some children might have been resentful. Dudley didn't have to make anything, after all.

Harry was not resentful in the least. His aunt might turn her nose up at him and scold him, and call him useless, but she still needed his help. Harry got to help his aunt and Dudley never did. Harry felt important. He also felt a bit at a loss. He didn't know how to make lemonade. Wasn't it a kind of fizzy drink? How did he get the bubbles in?

His aunt stuck a sack full of lemons on the table, next to the juicer. Her expression very much looked as though she had gotten a head start on juicing the lemons with her mouth. Harry didn't notice. That's just how his aunt always looked.

"Well?" she said when Harry just stared at the lemons. "Go on! Start juicing!"

With a shrug, the tiny boy stepped up on his stool, grabbed a lemon, and sawed it carefully in half. He had to be careful with knives, his aunt had said, or he wouldn't be allowed to use them anymore. Knives are DANGEROUS. Dudley wasn't even allowed a butter knife, but Harry was able to cut up vegetables. Harry was able to do a lot of things Dudley couldn't do. All Dudley was allowed to do was watch TV or play silly baby games. He wasn't asked to do anything important.

Juicing a lemon turned out to be pretty much the same as juicing an orange. It was hard work. He had to put his whole weight on top of the lemon and turn it back and forth to get every last bit of juice out. It was a lot of work for just a tiny bit of juice. By the time had had worked his way through half the bag, his shoulders ached and his arms shook and even his legs felt a bit stiff. Maybe it was harder work than making orange juice. At least oranges were bigger.

"Is this enough lemonade?" he asked his aunt when she happened into the kitchen again. "How do you get the bubbles in?" He had tried shaking it, but all that had happened was a bit of froth on the top.

"It isn't going to be fizzy lemonade," his aunt answered sharply. "Stupid, ignorant boy. You don't make lemonade just by squeezing lemons. Here!" She went and got a glass down and poured a bit of his hard earned juice into the cup. "Drink that! Just you see!"

All that hard work had made Harry thirsty, and so, with a shrug, he took the glass and gulped it down. Blech! He made a face. Lemonade was not tasty at all. He didn't know why Dudley liked it so much.

"You have to add sugar water, you stupid boy," his aunt told him, smiling nastily at him. "Here's the recipe, here!"

It wasn't the first time his aunt had waved a recipe at him and wanted him to follow it. Harry sighed. Sometimes his aunt could be a very stupid, ignorant woman.

"Aunt Petunia," he said patiently, "I'm only three. I don't know how to read."

"You'll be four next month!" his aunt answered. "It's high time you learned and stopped being so lazy around here!" This didn't make much sense, considering that Dudley was four years old and he didn't know how to read so much as his own name. Maybe it was just another one of those things that Harry was able to do and Dudley wasn't, like knowing how to weed the garden or set the table. And Harry rather liked the idea of being able to read.

"Will you teach me to read, Aunt Petunia?" Harry asked.

"Stupid boy," she answered. "I don't have time for such nonsense. Teach yourself!"

"Okay," Harry answered, "What does this recipe say?"

His aunt's mouth squeezed up as though she were the one who had drunk the horrible lemonade, but nonetheless she told him. She was even kind enough to jab her finger at the bits she was reading, as though to say _this_ is what it says, you stupid, ignorant boy, now pay attention! Harry paid attention.

Making lemonade took lemon juice, water, and sugar. Harry discovered that lemon juice tasted horrible, but lemonade was lovely. Who knew that one could make such a delicious drink out of such a disgusting fruit?

There was probably a lesson to be learned there. What Harry actually learned, aside from how to make lemonade, was how to read words like 'lemon' and 'sugar'.

When harry was four and a half, he read through all of Dudley's picture books. Normally, Dudley would have protested that sort of endeavor on Harry's part. After all, the picture books were his. Just because he didn't read them himself didn't mean the freak got to!

But Harry wasn't just reading the picture books. He was reading them out loud to Dudley. That meant that Harry wasn't a book thief; he was entertainment. At four years old, Dudley had yet to reject books as dull and stupid, quite likely because at four years old no one had tried to force Dudley to read any for himself. Books, at that age, meant cuddling with his mum while she read. But his mum would get tired of reading to him after just one reading and tell him to go play. Harry didn't get tired. He'd read the same book again and again and again. Also, sometimes he'd make things up, and that was funny.

'_Happy the frog hopped on the hob_,' said the book, '_Too hot! Too hot! And off Happy hopped._'

"Happy the frog hopped on the hob," Harry read, "Too hot! Too hot! And then he burned into a crisp and was eaten for dinner. 'Mmm,' said the boy. 'Crispy'."

Then Dudley would laugh until he was red in the face. Aunt Petunia was less pleased when Dudley demanded frogs for dinner.

One of Dudley's books was about a squirrel. Like most of the animals in the books, it could talk. (And like most of those books, it wound up in the rubbish bin after Dudley started asking why the squirrels in the park didn't talk). This squirrel was called Sammy, and Sammy lived inside a tree. His home was cold and bare and ugly. Then Sammy made it cozy and warm and pretty.

Harry read that book and he looked at the pictures and he thought about his cupboard under the stairs. That was where Harry slept. It was not a very nice room. It didn't have furniture, like Dudley's room, nor was it even particularly clean. Sammy's home in the tree hadn't been clean either. Sammy didn't put up with that. The squirrel made a broom out of dried leaves and dusted and swept and cleaned it up.

Harry knew that Dudley was not a particularly bright child and that he didn't know how to clean. That's why Harry and his aunt did it for him. Harry did know how to clean. Perhaps that's why his cupboard was left like it was? His aunt knew Harry was a big boy who could clean for himself. She probably thought he was being stupid and ignorant for putting it off so long!

Harry didn't even have to make rudimentary cleaning tools out of twigs and leaves. He had a duster and broom and mop and rags. So one day, Harry dragged out his mattress and old clothes and got to work. It took him all morning to remove every last cobweb and speck of dust. It took him the rest of the afternoon to take care of the mess he made in the hallway.

That night, for the first time that he could remember, he went to sleep on his freshly washed sheets, wrapped in his nice clean blanket, and without a single spider to keep him company.

Cleaning his room was just the first step. Next came the beautification process. He started with furniture. Of course, his aunt and uncle weren't about to just give him furniture even if he had decided to ask, but Sammy the squirrel wasn't given furniture either. He made his own!

Every week, numerous cardboard food boxes went into the rubbish bin. So did old cans and bottles. Considering that it was usually Harry who was responsible for the trash, it was quite easy for him to start saving things. Dudley's safety scissors turned out to be a bit rubbish at cutting through cardboard or plastic, but Harry had been using the kitchen knives to cut for ages.

Before long, Harry had made his own dresser, nightstand, and table. They were all quite a bit smaller than Dudley's furniture, of course, but then Harry was smaller than Dudley and his room was small too, being roughly the size of the bathroom. They were also flimsy constructs, but Harry was quite pleased with them. Finally, he drew happy pictures and hung them all over the walls. His room was cozy, warm, and pretty. Over the years, his constructed furniture and decorative sense only improved.

When the boys were five, Dudley went to school and Harry stayed home. His aunt blubbered over her ickle Duddykins growing up, and started hanging his schoolwork up on the fridge, gushing over his ever achievement.

Harry was never praised. He was put in charge of the garden, a good deal of the household chores, and the cooking. Harry watched his cousin being praised and coddled and given snacks and toys and candy. He watched his cousin sitting in front of the telly or amidst his toys. He watched Dudley struggle with the counting, and scream and throw things.

Dudley, he realized with a great deal of sympathy, must be a bit simple. He knew about kids like that, because whenever they saw one at the park, his aunt would turn her nose up and usher Dudley away, as though afraid it might be catching. He heard other parents and kids whisper about those kids. Some said they shouldn't come to the park. Other, kinder parents, told their children to be nice to them because they are special and you need to be gentle with special people.

People had to be nice to Dudley because he was special and he needed to be babied, a bit. He needed all those toys and he needed everyone to tell him how special he was. Harry didn't need that. Harry's praise wasn't in words; it was in seeing a job well done. It was in the way his family scarfed down the food he prepared. It was in the way his aunt's friends all praised her on how clean she kept her house. Dudley had toys and tantrums. Harry had responsibilities and jobs.

"Look, Freak," Dudley said to Harry. "I can write my name, and you can't because you don't go to school and you're a stupid freak."

"Good job, Dudley!" Harry told him, and very kindly didn't point out that he had, in fact, written 'DubLy'. "You are so smart!" Then Dudley puffed up proudly and went to show his mum. Harry went out to work on the garden. He loved working on the garden. There was something amazing about something growing up out of practically nothing. His favorite time of day was the early morning, before breakfast got started, when it was just him and he could sit out in the garden surrounded by growing things. Sometimes he would tend his plants, and sometimes he would just talk to them or sing to them. Sometimes the tiny sparkly bug people would come and play. There in the morning dew, when most of the world was still sleeping, it was like the garden was telling him secrets.

Then of course the world would wake up, and Harry had to make breakfast. His uncle, who often seemed quite as special as Dudley, would grumble about things being burnt and threaten to lock Harry in his cupboard.

"You are so smart, uncle," Harry told him, studying the perfectly cooked bacon on his uncle's plate, "Noticing all those burnt spots. Do you want me to take it away?" His uncle gave him a puzzled glare and clutched his plate possessively.

After breakfast, and several tantrums later, Dudley went to school and his uncle went to work. Harry cleaned up after breakfast. Harry was so good at it by this point that his aunt didn't need to help him at all. There was something very satisfying, Harry discovered, about making a room spotless. Sometimes, he timed himself to see how fast he could manage it.

Then he would clean the rest of the house. It never took particularly long, considering it was something done daily. By mid morning, his aunt had usually returned from dropping off Dudley and any other little errands she had that morning, and Harry was usually done with the chores. They left each to their own devices. Unlike Dudley, Harry didn't need his aunt to arrange for Harry to be entertained. Harry enjoyed reading to himself or to his garden, working on improving his bedroom, polishing things until they were shiny, drawing pictures, climbing the tree in the backyard, and playing make believe. Not that he knew the words 'make believe' since they were considered about as naughty as the word 'magic' in that household. He didn't really call it anything; he just did it.

Sometimes the tree was a boat and Harry was a pirate. Sometimes he was a squirrel. Sometimes he was a puppy. Harry liked to make things for his games too, like a cardboard sword or a little cat made out of a plastic bottle. For one year he had all the day to himself.

Then the boys were six and it was Harry's turn to start school. At first they wanted to stick Harry in the remedial class with the students who were a bit behind the other kids. After all, he wasn't able to identify any of the letters of the alphabet, didn't respond when his name was called, and his aunt told them all how he had never been to school before and she always found him a bit slow.

Harry was very friendly and social with the other kids. He told them 'good job!' when they showed off. He never tattled if someone pushed him over. He shared his toys and never screamed and he always, always smiled. Then about a week into the new school year, his teacher came upon him in the reading corner, reading a book out loud to his classmates.

"I didn't know them," Harry told the teacher after she asked him why he had acted like he didn't know any of his letters. "I just learned how to read them, not how to say them. No one asked me questions about reading."

By the end of the second week, Harry's aunt had to have a meeting with the school. They wanted to move Dudley into Harry's classroom, and Harry into the next year up with the older kids. Harry's aunt was furious on both accounts, no matter how the teachers tried to word things with a positive spin. The same words that had so pleased her when they were directed towards Harry became a dire insult when directed at her Diddykins.

Harry's uncle shouted a lot and then tried to lock Harry in his cupboard without dinner. It didn't particularly work because Harry had fixed the lock so that he could always open his door at any time when he was five and because Harry knew the contents of the kitchen better than anyone in the house and was able to silently fix himself a plate after everyone had gone to bed. Besides, Harry preferred to sit in his cozy little room with his schoolbooks rather than listen to his uncle scream.

In the end, they explained to Dudley that he was so special and so good at school that the teachers wanted to put him in a special classroom. The freak, they told him, was such an egghead suck-up showoff that they had to stick him with the big kids and he had to read big boring books and do lots of maths instead of fun things like Dudley was going to do.

"And don't come running to us if those big kids bully you," his uncle told Harry sternly. "It's your own fault for trying to look better than Dudley."

The big kids did try to bully Harry. They weren't particularly good at it. Harry was used to being the smallest person around, used to being called far worse things than 'baby', and he was used to being pushed or kicked. The new kids had nothing on Dudley. In fact, the majority of them were more likely to run to the teacher and tattle on the bullies than they were to join in and try to hurt the weird little kid who never fought back or cried.

Harry loved school. His school had a library filled with new books to read, it had a playground that was more fun to climb than his tree, and it had lots of kids. Sure some of the kids were special in the same way as Dudley, but many of the kids were like Harry. Playing pirates was a lot more fun when you had a whole crew to play with you and fight against. Pretending to be a squirrel was more fun when there was a whole zoo of animals playing with you. Then there were sports. Harry hadn't known about sports before school; Dudley had never been interested in anything that involved a lot of running. Harry discovered he loved sports.

In a different lifetime, Harry and Dudley would have been in the same year. Eventually, they'd have been in the same class. In that lifetime, Harry might have felt safer hiding his own abilities so as to not show up Dudley. In that lifetime, Harry would never have any friends because Dudley would have scared them off.

That's not how Harry's school years went. Harry was at the top of his class, despite the other children having a head start. Harry was well liked by most of the students. Dudley was feared by his own classmates. He was not feared by Harry's. By Christmas, the boys that had started off teasing Harry and pushing him down were the same boys who defended him if they saw Dudley being a bully.

"You should fight back, Harry," his new friends told him. "It's not right to let people bully you."

Faced with kids who were larger than him and meaner than him, Dudley ran to his mum and wailed about Harry's gang of bullies and thugs. Harry's aunt marched up to the school and demanded something be done. There were long meetings on the subject.

In the end, there was an entire assembly on bullying, and teachers kept a sharp eye out for all instances. Harry was not bullied at school. He had lots of friends to play with. At home, he quickly learned to avoid Dudley until he'd gotten his after school tantrum out of the way. Unlike the teachers, his aunt and uncle saw no reason to stop Dudley from hitting the freak.

Harry sometimes felt saddened that his own cousin felt the need to bully others. He felt like a rift had come between them, even greater than the rift caused by their differing intellects. That didn't stop Harry from looking out for Dudley. He still smiled and praised him when Dudley tried to show off his work. He even discovered alternative recipes after they started studying health and he realized all those sweets were the reason Dudley had grown so huge.

This was of particular importance to Harry considering that Harry got all of Dudley's old clothes. If Dudley continued to expand at the rate he had been, Harry would soon be swimming in his old clothes. As it was, he was currently wearing, at age six, things that had fit Dudley when he was four. A four year old's fashion is not the sort of thing one wants to be wearing when one's peers are in the seven to eight age range.

It took Harry a few years, nonetheless, to find a real remedy to his clothing issues.

When Harry was eight, he was given two things which ultimately helped him to resolve his clothing issue. The first was a pair of glasses. The second was a particularly nasty jumper by his aunt.

The glasses were brilliant. He hadn't even realized how bad his eyesight had gotten until he could suddenly see again. Dudley celebrated his cousin's new fortune by sitting on them.

By the second time his glasses' frame had broken, Harry recognized that sellotape was not a long term solution. His aunt and uncle, of course, told him they weren't throwing good money after bad and if he couldn't take care of his things he'd just have to deal with it.

The jumper, being the second item he received, was less worn than usual as Dudley had always refused to put it on when it had been his.

"Thank you, Aunt Petunia," said Harry politely, "But I prefer my current jumper. That one's hideous."

"You'll wear it, and like it!" his aunt told him. "If you think the clothes I give you are so hideous, why don't you get your own clothes!"

She wasn't serious, of course. She knew that Harry had no money. Harry, however, turned thoughtful. By this age, he was very used to making things for himself. His bedroom furniture, for instance, had come a long way from the poor efforts of a four year old, even if he did still use discarded materials for the creation. Instead of the old drawings he used to have taped to his wall, he had painted an entire wall mural. He had even painted one wall to look like a window out on a garden, and hung his old baby sheets up for curtains.

He had already been playing around with the idea of making himself some new frames for his glasses. After all, it was the lenses that were important, not the frames. Surely he could develop something that couldn't be broken? And as long as he was designing it himself, why not make those frames stylish and unique? And now that the idea was there…why not fix his entire outfit?

He had no idea why it had taken him that long to think to turn his creative efforts to his wardrobe. He had been wearing Dudley's cast-offs all his life. He always looked a bit ridiculous in the too large clothing, and quite often the clothes came to him torn or stained or both. He just wore what he was given and never really thought about it. He had never been particularly interested in clothes.

It turned out that Dudley's size was, in fact, an advantage when it came to altering the clothes to suit Harry. It meant that he had a surplus of material. It occurred to him, when he first got to work, that it would have been really difficult if it had been Harry who had grown big and fat while Dudley had been small and skinny.

He started small, simply by cutting off the puffy balls that had been put all over the awful jumper. His glasses were even simpler; he kept the repaired frames and wrapped a pipe cleaner around them to hide the repair.

After that he grew more ambitious. His first attempts at significantly altering or improving his clothes were mostly disasters. Harry knew nothing about sewing or knitting or how cloth worked. His school library was also rather lacking in that area, though there were a few crafts books that covered knitting and crochet.

Then Harry discovered the public library. It was the school librarian who mentioned it. It had an entire row of books on design, several on sewing, and an entire crafts section.

By the age of nine, Harry's clothes had gone from shoddy to unique. Some of his color choices might have been questionable, but the clothes fit him perfectly and his patchwork was so natural that it looked like that diamond patch or the dinosaur shaped patch was supposed to be there and not the result of a lot of hard work. He also had a large number of jumpers (none with fuzzy balls), and socks, scarves, and mittens. His aunt let him have lots of yarn considering he was making things for the entire family as well as himself. He even crocheted a stuffed bear for Dudley, which Dudley had a great deal of fun tearing apart. Harry never made toys for himself. He wasn't a baby, after all.

When Harry was ten years old he talked to a snake in the zoo. He spent the resulting time while he was supposedly locked in his cupboard working on his wardrobe. There was a uniform at his new school and he was having some difficulty making Dudley's clothes match the required wear, even after they were dyed gray.

A few months later, Harry got a letter in the post. Harry never got letters. This one resulted in his entire family uprooting themselves and moving to a shack on a rock.

Then Harry turned eleven, and his life once again changed.


	2. Year 1 Part 1

On the day Harry Potter turned eleven, or more accurately the early morning of the day he turned eleven, or even more accurately the very minute the new day dawned of his new birthday when Dudley's watch beeped for midnight, a very odd man knocked at the door.

Normally, the Dursleys practiced safe habits and likely wouldn't answer a knock from a stranger at midnight, particularly such a wild looking stranger. Under the current circumstances, however, they had very little choice in the matter as the door being knocked upon broke and the man doing the knocking wasted no time in entering on his own accord. He was, however, kind enough to pick the door back up and rest it in place. This was of particular importance as it was teeming down outside and gusts of heavy rain had been following him inside through the open door.

"I'm warning you!" Mr. Dursley screamed, waving a gun in the stranger's direction. Harry did not blame him, the intruder was very wild looking indeed, but he didn't think this was the best response. For one, he didn't think his uncle had come by the gun through legal means, and for another he didn't think his uncle to be of sound mind, which is the sort of mind one hopes that a gun wielding citizen should be in.

The giant stranger didn't seem to care in any case, talking instead about wanting tea while Dudley took refuge behind his parents. Harry wondered if he shouldn't be doing the same. Then the stranger called him by name.

"Thank you," Harry said politely but also sincerely when he was presented with a squished birthday cake. He had thought that, thanks to their unplanned holiday to a shack in the middle of nowhere, his birthday would pass without any notice that year. Not that his relatives ever made a big fuss, but normally Harry got to bake his favorite cake and cook his favorite foods and he would be gifted with new yarn for knitting and perhaps something new to cook with in the kitchen or a new gardening tool. Not that getting to go on a holiday to a shack in the middle of a lake wasn't present enough, but there weren't many ingredients to work with towards baked goods.

"I'm sorry," Harry said then, after admiring the effort the giant had put into his birthday cake, "But I don't know who you are?"

"Rubeus Hagrid," the stranger answered, "Gamekeeper and keeper of the keys at Hogwarts."

This, of course, required further explanation to be understood, interspersed with the Dursleys' protests and threats of violence, though luckily Hagrid managed to break the gun before Harry's uncle could manage anything that might result in a prison sentence. The new information all boiled down to one important fact:

"You're a wizard, Harry."

This man, Harry realized, was quite sadly one of those sort who are mentally incapacitated. He apparently lived in some exciting fantasy world.

"Of course I am," Harry told him while giving him a consoling pat to his arm. "We're all wizards."

"Yes…" Hagrid answered, giving Harry a puzzled look but not breaking into new bouts of violence or shouting so Harry supposed he was handling the situation well. Then Hagrid looked at the Dursleys again. "Well, not that lot. The most muggle sort of muggles I've ever met."

"Of course they are," Harry said, though normally he'd object to someone calling his family names. His uncle and his cousin might be a bit simple but there was no need to make fun of them for it.

"Yes…well," said Hagrid, "I have your letter here."

The envelope was heavy, as though it were made out of some medieval parchment. It, like all its predecessors which had started this mad journey out to the middle of nowhere in the first place, was addressed to Harry, to his exact location in the shack. Harry accepted it, but did not tear it open. He was curious, of course, as to what was in it, but he was even more curious about how and why this large, sadly delusional man had chased him down to deliver it. How had he trained all those owls? How had he always known just where Harry was staying? And if the man was stalking Harry, why couldn't his aunt and uncle simply have gone to the police? They certainly seemed to have some idea what this was about, considering how hard they protested Hagrid telling Harry anything.

"Well, go on, read it!" the man said, and Harry felt it might have been dangerous to disobey.

It was a letter inviting him to be a student at Hogwarts. The school which, according to Hagrid, his parents had attended. A magic school which taught magic, and not in the sense of sleight of hand but actual magic.

"How lovely of them to invite me," Harry said, after looking at the letter, "But I'm afraid I already attend a school. It will be my second year at Stonewall this September."

"There, you see!" his uncle managed to say, "He says he won't be going!"

"Nonsense!" Hagrid answered, becoming agitated once more, his large hands clutching at an old umbrella, "Lily and James son, not going?"

"There, there," said Harry quickly, "I didn't see how much it meant to you. Of course I'll go to your magic school. Let's just tell an owl like it says and then maybe, since it's so late, we might be going back to bed and talk it over properly in the morning." Then he smiled at Hagrid and hoped Hagrid wouldn't turn violent.

"Owl, right, of course," Hagrid answered, before pulling a live owl out of one of his pockets. Harry watched with great fascination as the man wrote out a quick message using an actual quill and inkpot. He felt a bit sorry when the owl was thrown into the storm. He hoped it made it.

"Now," said Hagrid, "Who wants some sausages?" He pulled them from another pocket, along with a small saucepan. He also poked at the remains of the fire Harry had managed to build earlier using crisps bags and the clothes they had changed out of when they arrived at the shack, said clothes being largely ruined anyway. The embers apparently still had some life after all because almost immediately a cheerful fire had blazed up.

"I'm still full from the fish we ate earlier," Harry answered. Who knew that fish would go for bananas as bait? "But perhaps the others are hungry? They're bigger than me so they often need more food."

"Don't you touch anything that man offers," Harry's aunt answered sharply. Harry had to admit that was probably sensible, though he did look at his birthday cake with some regret.

While Hagrid had his meal, Harry managed to sidle up to his aunt's side to whisper with her.

"Aunt Petunia," he said, "Do you know who he is? Why he's obsessed with me and this magic school? Do you think he knew my parents?"

"It's a cult, that's what it is," his aunt hissed back. "My sister was drawn into it, went to that horrid school, then was killed for it."

"You mean the school is real?" asked Harry, rather surprised. He had thought Hagrid must have dreamed up everything himself, but apparently it was much larger than that.

"Oh yes," his aunt answered, "And you'll have to go too, now. They'll see to that!"

That was very alarming news.

"But I don't want to join a magic cult," Harry whispered, "Can't we go to the police? How can I get proper schooling at a fantasy school?"

"Are you sure you won't have some sausages, Harry?" Hagrid called.

"Mum…" Dudley said, looking at the sausages with drool on the edge of his mouth.

"You stay away from that freak!" his mum answered shrilly.

"Hey!" Hagrid said, becoming angry once more as he reached for his umbrella, and with a squeak of alarm, all three Dursleys ran into the other room of the shack and closed the door, leaving Harry to deal with Hagrid. Harry felt proud that they trusted him to be able to handle things, though he also wished a bit that he could hide with them. It wasn't that he found Hagrid scary so much as that he found him a bit sad but alarming and dangerous, like the snake at the zoo that had somehow gotten free.

"Good riddance," Hagrid muttered once they were alone. "I was quite ready to turn the fat one into a pig."

Harry thought that rather rude, but carefully didn't say anything of the kind. Instead, he took another look at his school letter. Now that he knew it wasn't a complete fabrication, he decided he might as well learn more about it.

"This school sounds quite expensive," said Harry after looking at the invitation and at the school list, "I don't think my family can afford it."

"Don't you worry about that," said Hagrid, "Your parents left you quite a sum, I believe."

"I don't know of any store that sells these items," Harry tried again, hoping against hope that perhaps Hagrid might admit it was all one giant game of make believe.

"There are shops, if you know where to look," said Hagrid. "Now, perhaps we should get a bit of sleep. Big day tomorrow."

Hagrid was quite right about that.

They left early without even saying goodbye to Harry's relatives. That was, Harry supposed, probably for the best. The only worry that Harry had was that they had taken the only boat and he wasn't entirely certain how his family was meant to get back. This vague worry plagued him all the way to London, though he was a bit distracted by Hagrid's stories once Harry got him to talk. Harry found it quite enjoyable once he got it in his head to look upon his own family history as a sort of storybook instead of a mad cultist's delusions.

"So my parents went to a magic school, and there was a secret war and a madman wanted to kill me so they hid, but he found them anyway, and then he killed him, but he didn't kill me, and he died instead, and he's so scary you can't tell me his name, and that's why I have no parents and a scar?"

"That about sums it up," Hagrid agreed, sounding a bit puzzled himself. "You're taking this awfully well, Harry."

"I just like learning new things. I never knew stories about my own parents before. My aunt doesn't like to talk about them."

Arriving at the Leaky Cauldron was odd. It seemed the story about the school being real was starting to add up; Harry even met one of his future professors. It was also the first time Harry really began to understand what Hagrid meant when he said Harry was famous. Everyone in the pub was very friendly.

Diagon Alley laid to rest the fear that this was all some bizarre prank or mass fantasy play; there were far too many people and shops involved for it to be anything other than real. Then there was the bank.

"Run by goblins," Hagrid explained in what was probably meant as a whisper. The goblins were, quite honestly, the moment when Harry began to reevaluate his first assumptions that the 'magical' world was one mass fantasy upheld by a very widespread underground cult. It was hardly the first non-human humanoid beings that Harry had met, but they were the first that struck Harry as particularly magical or odd. Bug people in the garden made sense because bugs live in gardens, and just because some had proper faces and could sing didn't mean they didn't belong in gardens. Besides, he had known the garden bug people for as long as he could remember. Goblins, on the other hand, were most certainly not bugs and most definitely were not humans. They were, in fact, a novelty.

"Hagrid," Harry whispered, and then repeated a bit louder because Harry was quite good at whispering quietly but Hagrid had quite a lot of hair over his ears. "Can I see some real magic?"

"I'm not really allowed, on account of having been expelled," Hagrid answered, "But keep your eyes open."

Harry kept his eyes open. What he saw next was a bit like magic but mostly not.

"That's a lot of money, isn't it? Is this magic money? Do magic people not use paper money or credit cards? Is all this money mine, from my parents? Why didn't I know it was here before?"

Hagrid, unfortunately, was looking a bit green and the goblin who had opened the vault for them did little more than grudgingly explain the different types of coins. Neither told him how many pounds made a galleon. Hagrid did manage to collect some coins for Harry in a bag so Harry didn't have to guess out how many he should get out.

"Mr. Goblin, sir," said Harry, "Do you do bank statements or inventories of vaults or things like that?"

"It's none of our business, what people keep in their vaults," the goblin answered with a sneer. Then he took them to another, mostly empty vault so that Hagrid could pull out a small mysterious item.

"Do you think my aunt and uncle and cousin made it off the rock all right?" Harry asked while Hagrid was being proud and secretive with his package.

After the bank, Hagrid sent Harry to be fitted for his new school robes while he went to recover from the ride in the bank. Actually buying new clothes was a new experience for Harry. Normally he made his own clothes, either by knitting or by altering Dudley's old things. If it were up to his aunt and uncle, Harry would probably currently be swamped in oversized, stained hand-me-downs that had once fit Dudley when he was eight while sporting a pair of broken-framed glasses. Instead, he was wearing a perfectly fitted shirt and jeans with a colorful patchwork style and the broken frames of his glasses were hidden behind a carefully applied paper façade in the same color as his shirt so it wasn't at all obvious that they had ever been broken in the first place. The only part of his wardrobe that ever gave him trouble was his shoes; it was nearly impossible to improve upon used shoes, though painting them had gone a long way towards rejuvenating their appearance.

Being fitted for robes was fascinating. For one thing, it was the first solid evidence Harry had seen that magic might exist, in the form of a floating measuring tape. For another, Harry got to meet another boy who would be going to his new school. The boy even reminded Harry a bit of Dudley, which made Harry feel companionable towards him. He had the same way of asking questions only because he wanted to tell Harry his own answers in the first place, rather than wanting to learn anything from Harry. He also had that same air of expecting everything to be done for him.

"Where are your parents?" the boy finally asked after going on about brooms and school houses and other things Harry couldn't have contributed to even if the boy had given him a chance.

"The last time I saw my guardians, they were on left stranded on a rock," Harry answered, because generally when people asked questions about 'parents' what they meant was 'the adults who look after you'.

"What?" the boy asked, turning to look at Harry properly for the first time during their entire conversation. The boy looked Harry up and down, taking in his outfit and glasses. "These guardians, they are our sort, aren't they?" he asked.

"Do you mean magic people?" Harry asked, and at the boy's confused nod, Harry answered, "No, I don't think so. Apparently my parents were before they died in some war."

"And they stuck you with muggles?" the boy demanded, sounding outraged. "Typical ministry mismanagement. They'll bring us to ruin, letting all the muggleborn in and now this, not even giving a decent born wizard to a proper family. I suppose you won't know anything about our world? What's your name, anyway?"

But at that moment Hagrid knocked at the door, holding up ice creams to show why he couldn't come in and the other boy was distracted.

"And there's another sort they let run free. What is that wild man banging at the glass for?"

"He's the Groundkeeper at the school," Harry answered. The boy was not impressed. He reminded Harry of Dudley more than ever. Harry hoped that he wouldn't turn out to have bullying tendencies, though Harry still had hopes that his cousin might grow out of it. Still, Harry wished him a good day as his fitting was finally finished and Harry was able to go to join Hagrid with his ice cream.

Now that Harry understood that magic was real, he was much more excited to be going to his new school. They continued to collect the items on Harry's school list, from a wand to potions ingredients, but it wasn't until they went into the bookstore and collected his school books that Harry's old doubts began to return.

"What about mathematics?" Harry asked while a harried shopkeeper brought him the entire year one set. "What about English? Biology, chemistry, languages? Does the school only teach magic things?"

"Hogwarts offers the finest magical education you can get," Hagrid answered. "There isn't time to fit all those other things in."

"But what if I wanted to be a doctor when I grow up?" Harry asked. "Or a lawyer?"

"Doctor?" said Hagrid, "That's one of those muggle healers, isn't it? The kind that thinks sticking a leech on the hurting bit will help? Well, if you want to be a healer then Hogwarts can give you a good foundation."

Harry gave up on that subject for the moment. Instead, he took the time to explore the bookstore.

"Does the magic world have public libraries?" he asked. "Where people can borrow books for free?"

Both Hagrid and the shopkeeper had not heard of any magical libraries, at least none open to the public. The question about books designed to help people new to the magical world was much fruitful.

"You should have mentioned you were muggleborn," the shopkeeper said, giving Hagrid a pointed look. "We have an entire packet that comes standard, no cost, the school covers it. Then there's a suggested reading list." Harry looked over the list with great interest before consulting with Hagrid.

"Do you think I can afford the extra books?" he asked. "I don't really understand wizard money." In fact, the entire idea of spending money on himself was so foreign that he could scarcely comprehend that he had money to spend at all. He was readier to accept that magic existed than he was to understand that he owned a small fortune.

"It's not like you're spending it on a broom," Hagrid answered. "It's for your schooling, after all. And it is your birthday today, don't forget!"

With this new delightful thought in Harry's head, he gathered up the entire suggested reading list, then boldly added one more: 'Magical Crafts for Around the House'. The shopkeeper even took the time to teach Harry his very first spell: how to make items lighter.

"It'll wear off in a few hours, depending on how much magic you put into it" the shopkeeper warned. "A beginner like you, you'd probably have to renew it every hour."

The only awkward bit was doing magic in front of Hagrid, when Hagrid wasn't allowed.

"I work in a magic school," Hagrid pointed out. "If I couldn't stand seeing others doing magic, I'd have gone mad years ago. Truth be told, I was never really good at it myself anyway. Now, let's see about your birthday present."

Of course, Harry pointed out that Hagrid had gotten him a cake and showed him around and that Harry already had all those new books. Hagrid wouldn't hear of it.

"You bought yourself the books," he answered, "And a cake doesn't count. Everyone should get a cake and presents for their birthday."

That was how Harry ended up owning his very own snowy white owl.

"She's beautiful," Harry said. "I hope my aunt and uncle don't mind." Then, "I hope they managed to get off the rock."

"Will you stop worrying about that?" Hagrid asked. "I sent the boat back, alright? I know I'm not supposed to do magic, but I can do a bit and I did that much."

"Oh," said Harry. "Thank you."

"Don't mention it," Hagrid replied. "Please. Ever."

The last thing Hagrid did before dropping Harry off at his house was to give him his train ticket and, in a rather offhand way, said, "Oh, you aren't really meant to practice magic outside of school."

Harry found out that his aunt and uncle and cousin had gotten home alright. They did not like the owl.

"You've been converted into their magic cult already, I see," his aunt said, her face pinched.

"I'm not sure it is a cult," Harry answered. "It turns out magic is really true."

"That doesn't make it not a cult," his aunt said while his uncle quietly turned red at the mention of the 'm' word.

"Can I have an owl?" Dudley demanded. "Why does he get to have an owl and learn magic?"

Uncle Vernon's face turned even redder.

"Just you lock away that owl and those freakish things," his aunt said.

"Go to your cupb…room, boy!" his uncle shouted. "And just…stay there!"

Harry had to admit his new room was much bigger than his cupboard, but it certainly wasn't nicer. He hadn't had a chance yet to paint any murals on the walls and his old furniture that had made his cupboard feel quite cozy looked a bit small and out of place in the larger room. With all his new things, though, it was probably for the best that it wasn't all being crammed in under the stairs, especially with an owl.

Harry arranged his new things neatly about his room, set his new owl up on her perch with some water and food, and arranged his new books alongside Dudley's on the bookcase. He had a month to prepare for his new school.

A month, he thought, might be just about enough time. But first, he went back downstairs. The garden had been awfully neglected, after all, and the entire house was looking a bit dusty and it was definitely time to get started on supper.

"Good to know you still know your place," his uncle commented gruffly as Harry set about his chores. Harry smiled. It was good to be appreciated.


	3. Year 1 Part 2

At four in the morning on the first of September, Harry Potter went outside to say goodbye to the garden.

"I will be gone until the summer, quite likely," Harry explained to the plants and to the sparkly bug people which one of his school books had suggested might, in fact, be called garden pixies. "My aunt and uncle told me it would be a good idea to stay at school for the winter break. It seems a bit silly to me, but perhaps they're afraid I'll bring magic things home. They really don't like magic. I suppose it's because of how it killed my mum. So I won't be back for almost an entire year."

The largest of the pixies flew up until it was directly across from Harry's face. It hovered there for a moment, its wings humming, and then it bowed its head towards Harry. Harry bowed his head back, as that only seemed the polite thing to do, and then all the pixies went back to their plants.

Harry went inside, fixed enough breakfast for the whole household, then set most of it aside on the warmer before he ate what was left out. He followed this up by making sandwiches, most of which he left wrapped in the fridge, but two which he put away with an apple and a bottle of water. He cleaned the kitchen. Then he went back upstairs.

By five o'clock in the morning, long before anyone else in the house stirred, he had his school backpack on his back and was dragging his suitcase out the door, a plastic sack filled with his lunch and excess luggage tied on top, and the owl stand carefully tied to its side. The owl herself, Harry had told to fly to Hogwarts. One of the books Harry had read suggested that familiars like owls can find most anyplace and Harry didn't think it a good idea to tote an owl around on trains. He did tell her she could take her time and not strain herself if it was very far. Also, just to be on the safe side he had written himself a letter, addressed to his future self in Hogwarts.

By six o'clock, he was at the closest train station waiting for the train to Victoria Station in London. It was a good thing that Harry had learned the lightening spell, because he didn't know how he'd have managed to drag his heavy luggage around otherwise. Buying a ticket had been a bit of trouble as all of Harry's money was in wizarding currency, but by a stroke of luck his aunt had actually agreed to fund his trip.

"Anything to get rid of you," she had said, which Harry took to mean she recognized Harry was quite capable of seeing himself off and that she was a bit cross from nerves since her baby Dudley was soon leaving home for the first time too, and obviously Dudley worried her a good deal more considering he was a lot less capable than Harry.

So Harry had no difficulty finding his way into London, at least once he was actually on the train. While he was waiting on the platform all the men and occasional woman, mostly in business suits, kept staring at him and asking things like 'running away from home, are you?', which was awkward because when he said he was going to school they all wanted to know where. In the end, he told them the absolute truth with a smile and they all laughed at his joke, and then the train arrived and the questions came to an end because apparently people on trains don't ask questions or talk.

Getting from Victoria Station to Kings Cross was much more complicated, starting with the fact that Harry didn't have an Oyster card and ending with the fact that he didn't know the way. Finding out the way was quite simple; apparently you can get tourist maps for free. The Oyster card was quite impossible; even when he tried the machine that took coins it apparently didn't recognize wizard money any more than a person would. Still, there was a reason Harry had set out so early in the morning, and even with having to tow all his luggage he thought it a great adventure to be able to walk across London. Especially after he managed to find a discrete corner to take out his wand and refreshed the lightening spell on all his things.

Despite the confusing way his map didn't always seem to match reality and a few wrong turns, by nine in the morning Harry had found his way to Kings Cross. All he had to do was to find his platform and wait a couple of hours for his train to arrive. Then, of course, he hit another snag.

There was a platform 9 and a platform 10, but there most definitely was not a platform 9 ¾.

Harry was not too worried, though. He had two hours to figure it out, after all. Perhaps it was a magical platform, just like Diagon Alley was a magical alley? After all, there must be a lot of magical children, and if they all bring things like owls or wear robes like his school robes then people would notice that. But how did he find a magical platform? Was it invisible, at the ¾ point in-between 9 and 10? Harry cautiously approached where he thought ¾ would be. It looked like a drop down onto tracks. Testing with his foot suggested this was not an optical illusion.

"Oy!" someone shouted, "Not so close to the edge!" The person was wearing an official looking uniform and looked so stern that Harry quickly grabbed his luggage and moved away quite a distance just in case the man decided to inspect Harry's ticket or ask awkward questions. He hid around the corner a good fifteen minutes before he dared to creep back to the platforms again.

This time, he decided to try the brick barriers. He didn't quite dare to tap bricks with his wand, but perhaps his hand would do? If not, he'd just have to stay back and watch until another magical person arrived. Unless he was in completely the wrong location? No, better to try first and if it got to be ten he'd start to worry.

He started with platform 10, supposing logically that 9 ¾ was closer to 10 than to 9. He reached out to tap a brick and missed. Or rather, the brick wasn't there. His hand went right through the wall.

"Oh," he said, pulling his hand in and out a few times before he stuck his entire head through. There was, indeed, an entire platform on the other side of the wall.

"Oy!" someone eerily similar to the first man who had shouted at him was now shouting at him again, this time from the magical platform. "Are you trying to let the muggles see you?!" this man shouted, "Stop playing and come through!"

So Harry grabbed his suitcase and went onto the platform. The train wasn't there yet, of course, as it was only half past nine, but there were already quite a few families milling about waiting. Harry still had no difficulty finding a bench to sit on where he ate one of his sandwiches as breakfast was quite a long time before.

Then, after noting that several of the people on the platform were wearing robes, Harry pulled out one of his new school uniform robes from his overflow bag and started to slide it on over his clothes.

"Oh, hello," an older boy said when he saw him struggling to figure out how to work the clasps. "Muggleborn, are you? We don't really wear muggle clothes under our robes, you know. Where are your parents?"

"My uncle is at work, I think," Harry answered after considering his relative's usual habits and the current time. "My aunt is getting my cousin ready for his first day of school."

"Oh, that's why I'm early, too," the boy said, "Because my dad is working, I mean, and he wanted to be able to see me to the platform. My mum only just left. Of course, it's my third year, so I'm used to taking the train by now, I told her she didn't have to wait. I'm Cedric, by the way, Cedric Diggory, from Hufflepuff."

"Hufflepuff is one of the four houses, isn't it?" said Harry. "Hufflepuffs have the tenacity of the badger, Slytherins the wisdom of the serpent, Ravenclaws the curiosity of the raven, and Gryffindors the courage of the lion."

"That's a kinder way of putting it than we normally get," Cedric answered, smiling and laughing a bit.

"It was in the book about Hogwarts," Harry explained, "The bookstore had it on the suggested reading list for muggleborns. Is it wrong?"

"No," Cedric answered, "It's just how houses get; they all like to say theirs is the best, and so of course they make fun of the other houses. Ravenclaws are bookworms and Gryffindors are all heart and no common sense. Slytherins and Hufflepuffs get it worst, though. You Know Who came out of Slytherin, you see. They're known for cunning, which is a nice way of saying evil snakes. And as for Hufflepuffs…well we aren't seen as evil, just useless. It's a hard trait to pin down, tenacity, loyalty, friendship. It doesn't sound so nice as being brave or smart or even cunning. People say our house is for the leftovers who aren't good enough to be in any of the others."

"That doesn't sound very nice," Harry said, though it did occur to him that the boy in the clothing shop had said something similar. His new school didn't sound very friendly.

"Well, we say things about them right back, so I suppose it's fair," Cedric answered, "And after all, we don't really have another school to be rivals with. We just compete against each other."

Harry supposed that made sense. His old school could get quite fierce in its competition with the other schools, especially when it came to sports.

"Do you have football?" Harry asked. His book on Hogwarts hadn't mentioned it, but it was hard to imagine a school that didn't have a football team.

"That's the muggle sport where they kick a ball back and forth, isn't it?" Cedric asked. "Sometimes the muggleborns will start up a game, but it isn't official. We play quiditch for our school sport."

"That's the game that's played on brooms?" Harry asked, because it had sounded very interesting in his book but had been very hard to picture in his mind, despite one small, black and white moving photo that accompanied the game's brief description.

"That's right," Cedric answered, and he gestured towards his own luggage which included a broom carefully tethered to the top. "I was on the reserve team last year; I'm hoping I'll be on the team proper this year."

As they talked about quiditch and Harry examined Cedric's broom with great fascination, the train station was very slowly beginning to fill up. Several students who looked about Harry's age were standing pale and excited in the middle of anxious families and quite a few older students were wandering around greeting each other. It wasn't long before students started calling Cedric's name. A few made joking comments about Cedric's 'baby brother', or how he was short for a prefect to be helping out the firsties.

Cedric answered cheerfully and made silly comments back when they teased him but he didn't go to talk to them.

"You don't have to stay with me," Harry told him, just in case Cedric thought he couldn't join his friends because Harry needed him.

"That's alright," Cedric answered, "I didn't want to drag all my things up and down the platform anyway. They can come over if they want to talk, or I'll see them on the train."

Then, at five past ten, there was a loud noise rattling down the track. Harry moved closer in spite of himself, something at once heavy and light filling his stomach with excitement. Slowly, almost gently despite its great size, a train pulled alongside the platform and then, with a great sigh and the scream of tortured metal, it pulled to a stop. Across its front were the words 'Hogwarts Express'.

"Is that it?" Harry asked. "Is that our train?"

"That's it," Cedric answered, and then with a laugh as Harry grabbed up his backpack and luggage he said, "There's no rush. It won't be going anywhere for another hour."

"But I want a good seat," Harry explained. "Unless seats are assigned? Do first years have to go to a specific car?"

"The train's done in compartments," Cedric answered, "And some of them are reserved, usually at the front. Prefects have their own car, I think, but otherwise just find an empty space."

Boarding the train was quite easy as the majority of the people on the platform seemed to be in no rush, though a few of the younger children that had come to see older siblings off were hopping up and down the steps. Harry went for the middle of the train, keeping in mind what Cedric had said about the reserved seats usually being up front, and still smiling at Harry's enthusiasm Cedric followed, pushing a cart full of his own luggage.

Harry had to cast his lightening spell again to get his things up the steps to the train.

"And here I thought you'd need my help getting in," Cedric said, "I thought you said you didn't know anything yet!"

"The shopkeeper taught it to me," Harry explained. "I don't really know any other spells. Hagrid told me we weren't really meant to do magic out of school."

Cedric stayed with Harry long enough to get him settled in a compartment with his luggage stowed in the overhead, but he didn't stow his own. He did take the time to guard the doorway to allow Harry a chance to get situated into his new wizard robes properly without his old clothes on underneath.

"Do wizards wear pants under their robes?" Harry asked once he was decent again, all clasps in their correct positions. He carefully folded his removed garments and tried not to feel like he was wearing a dress.

"I think that's a personal decision," Cedric answered. Then, with Harry fully situated, Cedric dragged his own things back out into the corridor.

"It's better if you have a chance to meet other first years," Cedric explained, looking a bit worried in case Harry thought he was being abandoned, but that made perfect sense to Harry.

"I'm glad I met you," Harry said, "I can tell other muggleborns about things now."

"I'm glad I met you too," Cedric answered. "It might have been really boring waiting on the train if I hadn't had someone to talk to." Then he left to find his own friends and Harry settled himself by the window.

Out on the platform, despite the fact that there was still nearly an hour to departure, things were starting to get very busy and chaotic as more and more families arrived. It wasn't long before students were running up and down the corridors, and every once in a while a head would peer into Harry's compartment. When it saw someone already inside it, it usually ducked back out again, sometimes shouting to unseen friends 'This one's taken', or occasionally there would be whispers of 'do you think that's him? He's supposed to be starting this year' but no one spoke to Harry. They were mostly older students, though once it was a girl who looked about five and was clearly not school-aged. Harry supposed she was someone's little sister who would have to get off before the train actually left.

Harry was just beginning to wonder if he would be alone for the entire journey to Hogwarts and whether he shouldn't try and seek out some other first years himself, when his door opened again and this time the head looking in seemed closer to Harry's age, at most a year older.

"Hello," said the girl, instead of immediately shutting the door again, "Are you a first year too? Do you mind if I sit in here?"

"Yes and no," Harry answered, and then when she looked a bit puzzled and taken aback he expanded: "Yes, I'm a first year, no, I don't mind if you sit in here. I'm Harry Potter. Do you need help with your luggage?"

"You're Harry Potter?" she asked, sounding startled even as she heaved a very heavy suitcase into the compartment. "I read all about you, of course. We may need help with my trunk; it's full of books. Oh, and I'm Hermione Granger, by the way."

"Nice to meet you," Harry said as he shook her hand. "I didn't know I was in any books. Here, I know a lightening spell."

Hermione Granger was thrilled to watch him work a spell, pulling out her own wand to try it herself. That turned out to be just as well, because her trunk was so ridiculously heavy it took both their tries to get it light enough to heave over their heads, and then Harry had to stand on a seat to be tall enough to get it into the overhead space.

"Let's hope the shelf doesn't break when it starts to get heavy again," Harry commented, "I wouldn't want that falling on me. How many books did you bring? Even with my whole school set and the suggested reading my trunk didn't weigh that much."

"Only twenty," Hermione answered, her tone regretful, "My parents wouldn't let me take more. Oh! I'm supposed to go back out to say goodbye. I just wanted to have my things settled before all the compartments filled up."

It was becoming very chaotic, both on and off the train by that point as the time of departure crept nearer and nearer. Out the window Harry could see more and more families charging through the barrier onto the platform, including an entire hoard of redheads. He couldn't find Hermione or her parents in the crowd but there were certainly a lot of families saying goodbyes, either on the platform or from students leaning out the windows of the train. The train corridor was crowded with luggage and students of various ages as well as cats and owls.

When the door slid open yet again, Harry turned from the window expecting Hermione, but instead it was a boy who looked a bit too bewildered and anxious to be anything other than a fellow first year, despite the fact that he was a full head taller than Harry. He looked at Harry, then at the luggage already piled up over the seats, and he started to back out again.

"Hello," Harry said quickly, offering him a smile, "Are you a first year? Only two of the seats are taken in here; you can join us if you like."

"Alright," the boy said, before turning to holler down the corridor "Dad, I'm in here!"

Then he stepped calmly inside, setting down his backpack in a seat. A man arrived a moment later, awkwardly carrying an enormous suitcase over one shoulder which he immediately settled next to Hermione's trunk as though it weighed nothing, which, Harry thought, it probably did. The man was followed almost immediately by a woman who Harry supposed was the boy's mum.

"Oh good, you found a friend," the woman said, before grabbing the boy into a hug while the boy's face slowly turned bright red.

"You will owl us after your sorted," his dad said, and he gave his son's shoulder a firm pat, sent Harry a friendly look, and then helped his son escape his mum's embrace with words about the train being about to leave. Indeed, Harry could hear the whistle and the activity out on the platform grew twice as frantic as the last minute stragglers raced to find a place on the train before it left.

"I'm Harry Potter," Harry said to the boy once they were alone again, offering him his hand. The boy didn't take it though, choosing instead to gape at him. Harry supposed he must be especially bewildered to be away from his parents for the first time and didn't take offence. Instead he asked, "What's your name?"

"Michael Corner," he managed to get out after gaping a moment longer, and then he snapped his mouth shut and finally thrust his hand in Harry's direction to shake.

"Nice to meet you, Michael Corner," Harry said politely, and then, "Are your parents magical?"

"My dad is," Michael answered. Harry waited in case he wanted to say more, but the boy continued to stare at Harry instead. With a shrug, Harry looked out the window. The platform was starting to clear slightly, at least of students, though the families were mostly waiting to see the train leave. The entire train had taken on a feel of impending motion and the whistle came again. There was still no sign of Hermione. Then, with a sudden lurch, the platform began to slide away. They were moving.

Before Harry could really worry that Hermione had been left behind, the door to the compartments slid open and she darted inside, ran to the window, then started to wave frantically at the people still on the platform. Harry supposed she was waving to her parents, though Harry couldn't pick them out from the sea of families.

Because of this, it took the other boys a moment to realize she hadn't come alone. Another boy stood anxiously in the doorway.

"Hello," Harry said, once he had torn his eyes away from the disappearing platform long enough to notice him. "Do you want to sit with us?"

"Oh, this is Neville," Hermione said as she finally left off waving and sat down in the seat across from Harry. "He's a first year too. I found him in by the doors because he hadn't found a compartment."

"This is Michael Corner," Harry introduced, "And I am Harry Potter."

Neville made a squeaking sort of noise, but took Harry's hand automatically when Harry held it out to shake.

Once everyone knew everyone, Michael and Hermione, being the tallest, helped to heave Neville's trunk up over the seats. Neville said thank you half a dozen times then sat down in the corner seat near Harry and across from Michael. The middle two seats were left empty, and as the train was in motion it seemed likely they would remain that way.

"Did any of you bring an animal?" Harry asked into the ensuing silence as all the obvious things to say had already been said. "I've never heard of a school that lets you bring animals. Do animals help with magic, do you think?"

"My parents thought I had quite enough to deal with at a new school, without having to look after a pet, too," Hermione answered, the same tone of regret in her voice as when she had lamented only having twenty books.

"I have a dog at home," said Michael, "But the school doesn't allow dogs. I suppose they want us to have familiars that can look after themselves a bit, or at least won't be high maintenance."

"I brought Trevor," Neville answered, reaching into his robe's pocket. He failed to bring anything out though, and a look of alarm filled his face. "Trevor? Not again!"

"Did you leave him behind on the platform?" Harry asked, hoping 'Trevor' wasn't the sort of animal that was likely to get trod on or flattened by a train.

"Trevor's a toad," Hermione said, "And Neville had him earlier; he was holding him when we met, and that was on the train. He has to be around somewhere!"

"He's always running off," Neville said gloomily, "We're always finding him in the oddest places at home."

"Come on," Hermione said, standing up and grabbing Neville's hand, "I'll help you. We'll go compartment by compartment if we have to."

"Should we come too?" Harry asked, feeling worried. There were so many cats and owls around, surely a toad wouldn't be safe. Hermione considered this while Neville stared at Harry with wide eyes, his expression a mixture between sad, grateful, and worried.

"No," Hermione decided, "We'd just look silly, four kids running up and down the train after a toad. And I'll bet everyone will want to meet you, Harry, instead of helping us. People can get silly around famous people." So Hermione and Neville took off down the corridor and Harry sat back down with Michael.

Harry looked out the window for a bit, interested in watching the way London slowly gave way to the countryside. Then he turned to look at Michael again.

"Do you want to change into your school robe while they're gone?" Harry asked, "I can guard the door so no one comes in."

"Alright," Michael answered, so Harry stood in the hallway a bit. He spent the time trying to spot Trevor on the off chance Neville and Hermione had missed him. No toads came by, though a senior sporting a shiny badge walked by and asked what he was doing.

"My friend's changing into his robe," Harry explained, "I'm making sure no one else goes in, especially if Hermione comes back. She's a girl. She's helping another student look for his toad."

"With all the cats I've seen running free, they'll be lucky," the boy said. Then Michael slid the door open, now fully dressed in a Hogwarts robe, so Harry went back in.

It wasn't long before the door opened again, but it wasn't the boy with the badge or Hermione and Neville returning. It was the boy Harry had met in the clothing store. He was flanked by two other boys, both enormous, though Harry thought they were also first years. He was beginning to notice that the first years were the only students whose robes didn't have a school crest on their chest.

"So it's true?" the blond headed boy said after looking Harry up and down, only glancing briefly towards Michael. "They're saying all up and down the train that Harry Potter is in this compartment."

"I suppose it is true then," Harry answered, "Because I'm Harry Potter, and this is Michael Corner."

"I'm Draco Malfoy," the boy, Draco, answered, and then, noticing Harry glancing at his companions he said, "And this is Crabbe and Goyle."

"Nice to meet you," Harry said, taking Draco's offered hand to shake, then offering it to the boy on Draco's left. The boy, Crabbe according to Draco, merely stared at Harry for a long moment, but just before Harry could decide to try Goyle instead or to bring his hand down, he finally grabbed Harry's hand to shake, squeezing it just the slightest bit too hard. Goyle shook hands more readily.

While Harry shook his companion's hands, Draco studied Michael, who had remained seated and made no move to shake anyone's hands.

"Corner?" Draco said, "I don't know of any wizard families of that surname."

"Maybe not up at your castle," Michael answered, "But quite a few Corners have been to Hogwarts. My dad, for one."

"But not your mum," Draco said, his face twisting unpleasantly before he turned to look at Harry again. "You'll find not all wizarding families are equal. I can help you meet the right ones."

"Oh, I don't know about that," Harry answered, "I like making friends. It doesn't matter to me if they're good wizards or not. It'd be a sad, lonely sort of world if everyone could only be friends with people exactly like them."

"He doesn't need help from the likes of you," Michael said, standing up at last. "I've heard of you, Malfoy, and I'd say you're exactly the sort he should be avoiding."

"I don't want to avoid anyone," Harry insisted. "You can all be my friends if you want to, but Michael is my friend too, and so are Neville and Hermione."

"Are you some kind of simpleton, or what?" Draco demanded, staring at Harry in utter confusion.

"I don't think so," Harry answered, "They sent me ahead a year in school."

"Why are you still smiling?! I just called you simple!"

"No, you asked if I was, and I said I wasn't. And I like making friends, so of course I'm smiling. Why wouldn't I be?"

"This is an act," Draco decided. "It has to be. You're making fun of me. Somehow."

"It really isn't," Michael told him, "You just don't understand nice people. It comes of being evil I think."

Harry did stop smiling and suppressed a sigh while Crabbe and Goyle cracked their knuckles menacingly. He hated it when all his friends refused to get along.

"What are your first names?" Harry asked Draco's companions before Draco could think of a good comeback for Michael. "It seems odd to call my friends by their last names."

Both boys stopped making fists to stare at Harry, identical expressions of confusion on their faces. Harry was just beginning to worry that they actually didn't have the ability to speak, when the first said, "Gregory," and the other "Vincent."

"Okay…well, I already said nice to meet you, but it is. Have any of you seen a toad? My friend Neville has lost his."

"Who would bring a toad for a familiar?" Draco laughed, "They're useless."

"Not if you want to catch bugs," Harry answered. "Or talk to someone. I'll bet toads are great listeners. Or…"

"Whatever. Let's go guys. Potter's turned out to be a complete nutcase."

With a shrug, Vincent and Gregory followed Draco back out into the corridor, though Gregory did wave goodbye as he left. Harry waved back, smiling because, even if Draco felt the need to call him names, none of his friends were fighting anymore. Michael stared at Harry with a bewildered sort of look.

"You really aren't what I expected," he said, once they were alone again.

"I don't expect people to be anything," Harry answered, "It usually works better that way."

The next interruption still wasn't Hermione and Neville. It was a woman pushing a trolley filled with wizard treats.

"I suppose I can afford to buy a couple, just this once," Harry decided, the temptation to try new things greater than the uncomfortable feeling he got when he spent his money. "Do you know what's good, Michael? We better get something for Hermione and Neville too."

With Michael's help, he got four chocolate frogs, and then four pumpkin pastries ("Just in case Neville doesn't want a frog, because it makes him sad about Trevor"). They each paid half, and then decided they might as well have lunch, so Harry pulled out his second sandwich and his apple while Michael pulled out his own sandwich and crisps.

"Is all wizard food different, or just the sweets?" Harry asked while they ate.

"The sweets are the obvious thing," Michael answered. "There are wizard drinks too, like butter beer and pumpkin juice. But chicken is chicken and bread is bread and sandwiches are sandwiches."

Finally, just when Harry was wondering if he shouldn't go searching after all, the door slid open again and this time it was Hermione and Neville. There was no Trevor in sight, but they weren't alone either. A tall red haired boy was with them.

"This is Ron," Hermione announced. "He was sitting all alone in the last compartment, so I said he could come sit with us."

"Hello, Ron," Harry said, "It's nice to meet you."

Harry looked at Ron, then looked at the saved sweets.

"I don't think we have enough."

"Oh, that's alright," Hermione said, "We didn't find Trevor but we ran into the trolley on the way back. She emptied her pockets and five more candies were added to the pile.

In the end, Harry had quite an enjoyable ride with his new friends. If only they could have found Neville's toad.

Author's Note: You may have noticed I had Harry doing magic outside of school, and no warnings for being underage in sight! This is because I am following the tradition of many fanfic writers that speculate that the ministries method of tracking wand use doesn't come into effect until after they begin school, which is supported in cannon by the fact that Hermione claimed to have tried several spells already. Yes, technically she could have meant she tried them on the train before the search for Trevor, but for the purposes of my story she experimented at home.

Also, for those concerned about whether I'm going to continue this story or not…the answer is probably? I currently plan on continuing at least until the sorting, but I make no promises beyond that which is why I keep leaving the story marked as 'complete' when I can obviously write much more.


	4. Year 1 Part 3

Part 3

The train station for the school was just as crowded and chaotic as Kings Cross, possibly even more so as there were no parents to keep their children in line and the platform itself was much smaller. It also didn't help that they weren't bogged down by their luggage, which apparently would be taken from the train to the school separately, and so were free to run about at will.

Students young and old pushed their way onto the open platform. Harry and his new friends joined the crowd forcing their way slowly off the train and together they wandered in the general direction the rest of the students were going. Harry had just been able to make out in the dim platform lighting that there was a row of some sort of carriages ahead when a loud voice arose over the general murmur of the students.

"First years!" the voice called from the other end of the platform.

"That's Hagrid!" Harry said, delighted that he would get to meet someone he knew, and, with a bit of difficulty as they had to go against the crowd, they started towards him. He was easy to see, even though it was early evening and there wasn't much light, because he stood well over the heads of most fully grown adults, let alone teenage students.

It got easier as they went as less and less students streamed from the train and more and more of those left were also first years going in the same direction. Hagrid continued to bellow for the first years until the final stragglers had left the platform and the only people left were what Harry supposed to be the entire first year class who had found their way to Hagrid's side. It felt like quite a crowd, though when Harry looked around he didn't think there were nearly as many as he might have expected; at most there were around fifty students, possibly even less than that. Of course, Harry being Harry, he had expected anything from almost nobody to thousands and so he was not particularly surprised, though he was pleased that it was quite easy to slip towards the front so he could greet Hagrid again.

"Hello, Hagrid."

"Hello, Harry," Hagrid answered, offering him a smile before he surveyed the platform one last time. Then he addressed the group at large. "We're all here? Alright then, follow me! Watch your step, and don't leave the path."

Hagrid led them off the platform and down a dirt path into a forest. Most of the students huddled together as they walked, apparently nervous. Harry wondered why. Perhaps they found dark forests scary? Harry looked around, curious to see if there would be any of the magical beings his book mentioned, but it was quite dark beneath the trees and he didn't see so much as an owl, let alone a pixie.

"You'll be able to see the school in a bit," Hagrid announced, and then, quite suddenly, the path led out of the forest and ended at an enormous lake. Quite a few of the students stumbled to a halt and made gasps of awe. Across the lake was a castle. Harry thought it exactly the sort of place for a magical school, and rather thought he might have found the perfect wall mural to paint for his new bedroom back on Privet Drive. He wished he had a camera. In fact he spent so long looking at it that it wasn't until Hagrid's 'four to a boat' that he even noticed the boats where several fellow first years were already climbing aboard.

Four to a boat was, of course, a bit problematic since he and his new friends made five.

Luckily, Harry was always ready to make new friends. So when Hermione pulled Neville into a boat and the remaining boys looked at each other, uncertain who would be left behind, Harry kindly waved them ahead.

"You share," he told them, "I don't mind." Then he went to a half full boat before they could try to call him back. This boat had two girls in it. They looked a bit startled when he climbed in behind them.

"I hope you don't mind me joining you," Harry said, just in case they had been waiting for someone else. But one of the girls shook her head so Harry sat down.

"I'm Harry Potter," Harry said, cautiously offering his hand to avoid over tipping the boat as it rocked gently beneath them.

"I'm Susan Bones," the girl with red hair answered.

"Tracey Davis," the other girl said, each briefly accepting Harry's handshake, though they had to awkwardly twist around to do it since he was behind him and they were all facing forwards.

"Everyone in? Then off we go!" Hagrid shouted from his own boat, and as one all the boats started to move across the lake.

Susan grasped the sides of her seat tightly at the sudden movement. Tracey kept her hands folded calmly in her lap, though she did twist her head again to give Harry a puzzled sort of look. Harry hardly noticed as he was too interested in the boat ride and watching the castle slowly approach. The boats drew closer and closer and finally went right under the castle through an archway. Finally the boats slid back onto shore and the three of them stumbled out.

"That was a brilliant way to see our new school, don't you think?" Harry asked them; "At my old school they just gave us our class schedule and held an open school day to make sure we could find our way around. We just went in the front door."

"I was home schooled," Tracey offered, and Susan gave a sort of half nod but said nothing, her face looking rather pale. Harry hoped she wasn't sick.

Hermione, Michael, Ron and Neville all wandered towards Harry and his new friends, each of them looking oddly nervous. Did they not like boat rides? Or perhaps, Harry thought, they didn't like dark passages beneath a castle?

"Is this your toad?" Hagrid called from the boats where he had checked to make sure nothing was left behind.

"Trevor!" Neville exclaimed. Harry was happy that his friend's toad had been found.

Hagrid led them on to a closed door and knocked. A severe looking witch answered and was introduced as the deputy headmistress and one of their professors: McGonagall. She led them further into the castle and then left them before yet another closed door to wait. The students stood quietly until she was gone before they started talking again.

"Do you know how they sort us?" Susan whispered towards Tracey and Harry, the first words Harry had heard her speak since she told him his name. "My aunt wouldn't say."

"My brothers said we had to wrestle a troll," Ron offered, "But I think they were joking."

"I would think they make us do some spells," Hermione said, "To test us, maybe." And she started to mutter to herself all the sorts of spells she had taught herself and which ones she might need to know. Harry began to suspect everyone wasn't nervous because they were afraid of castles or lakes; they were nervous because they were afraid of being sorted. He still wasn't sure why. In fact, the only kid who didn't look a bit anxious and pale was Neville, who just looked happy that he had found Trevor again.

"I don't think we have to do a test to be sorted," Harry told his friends, hoping that might help. Hermione with her muttering about spells was already getting several dark looks.

"My father told me exactly how they sort us, of course," Draco announced, though he still looked quite pale, Harry thought. But then, Draco was the sort of person who looked a bit pale even when he was in perfect health.

Before Harry could ask what his father might have said, or if Draco was feeling ill, the room was suddenly full of ghosts. Some of the students screamed. Even Draco made a sort of squeaking noise, before he could catch himself.

Harry jumped too; their arrival was so sudden and they were arguing so loudly that it was impossible not to be startled, but his surprise was immediately followed by curiosity. He had read that the school had ghosts but so much of what he had read had been so far removed from his small room on Privet Drive that it had been hard to really take in.

"You must be the new first years!" one of the ghosts said, having noticed them; "Waiting to be sorted?"

"Yes," Harry answered, because no one else seemed about to. He rather wanted to talk to them more; ghosts must have seen such a lot of history he thought it would be fascinating to befriend them, but just then didn't seem to be the time. The ghosts seemed to think so too because they gave a few more words of encouragement then went on through a wall.

Professor McGonagall returned at last and they were led, at first it seemed, back outdoors. But it was an outdoors that had walls and a floor and long rows of tables and floating candles and no sense of free flowing air that one usually gets out of doors; the candles barely even flickered as outdoor flames tended to do, though that might have been because they were magic.

"The ceiling is enchanted to look like the outside sky," Hermione whispered softly, "I read it in _Hogwarts, a History_."

"Oh," Harry said, "You have a good memory for details." He had probably read about the enchanted ceiling too but it wasn't a tidbit he had taken special notice of. He had been more interested in learning about the school's classes than its architecture, and anyway, he preferred to make his first impressions in person and then learn the history and details afterwards. It is quite impossible to see a place for the first time twice, after all, barring medical calamity, and so he had only skimmed over that sort of thing in his book and instead paid close attention to the parts that really seemed important, like the four houses.

Eventually, after Harry had spent quite a bit of time staring up into the night sky and then about the room at the four tables and up at the dais where the professors evidently sat, Harry became aware that everyone was looking at something in front of the dais. Harry, being at the shorter end of his age group, couldn't quite see what it was.

"What is it?" he whispered to Michael, who was quite tall.

"It's an old hat," Michael answered, sounding puzzled, and then people in front of Harry shifted just enough that he could see it for himself. He caught sight of it just in time for it to start singing. Harry jumped a bit. That was unexpected.

After all that worrying and speculation, it turned out that to be sorted they just had to put on a hat. Harry thought Ron might be relieved. Hermione actually looked a bit disappointed. As Professor McGonagall started to call students forward by order of the alphabet to put the hat on their heads and be sorted, Harry wondered excitedly which house he would be sorted into. He didn't really have a preference himself, but it was fun to see where some of his new friends were being sorted. It was also a great chance to learn the names of all the students in his class. Harry paid attention. Each student had a turn putting the hat on their head and then, after a bit in some cases and right away in others, the hat would shout out the name of one of the houses.

Susan Bones was sorted into Hufflepuff and soon after Michael Corner was put into Ravenclaw. Vincent, Tracey and Gregory were all placed in Slytherin while Hermione was put into Gryffindor, as was Neville, though only after a great deal of deliberation on the hat's part. Draco got his wish so quickly that Harry wasn't entirely sure the hat even had time to rest on his head. Harry had a much clearer view by this point as half the students had already been sorted. Then, at last:

"Potter, Harry!"

It was Harry's turn. What he felt in that moment wasn't so much nerves as that rare thrill of excitement he only occasionally allowed himself to experience. He hardly noticed the whispers now filling the hall as he skipped up to the front and put the hat on. It was quite large and floppy and slid right over his eyes. For a moment he was alone in the darkness, waiting expectantly. Then, quite suddenly, he heard a voice.

"Interesting," said the voice, "Quite a positive world outlook you seem to have developed. Almost Slytherin in its deviousness, except that you don't seem to realize you're doing it. And what's this? A thirst for knowledge, I see, yes, a very strong drive to learn. A strong sense for compassion is here as well. Ambition, too. But where to put you?"

It must be the hat speaking, Harry realized, and it was looking inside his head to decide which house to put him in. He wondered what the inside of his head looked like.

"Not Gryffindor," the hat said, seeming to be talking to himself rather than to Harry, "You have to feel fear to be able to be brave and you seem curiously lacking in fear. You would do very well in Ravenclaw or Slytherin, very well indeed, but will you find what you truly need?

"Can you put me where I can learn a lot and make a lot of new friends?" Harry asked, just in case the hat could hear him. It seemed it could because the hat answered.

"Finding friends will not be a problem for you, I think," it said. "Tempting, very tempting to throw you into Slytherin. You'd be good for them, most certainly, but would they be good for you? No…for you to truly find what you need, better be…HUFFLEPUFF!"

The last word was shouted out to the entire hall. Harry smiled. It was good to know that the hat thought he might have the tenacity of a badger.

"Thank you, hat," he said before he took it off his head and set it back in its place for the next person. Finding his new table was no difficulty at all, first because he had paid attention to where the different students went after their sorting, second because he recognized Cedric and Susan at his new table, and third because it was the table that was cheering.

Harry waved to Cedric as he went to sit down next to Susan where the other first years had slowly been congregating. They didn't have a chance to speak yet, though, because of course the sorting wasn't finished yet. Professor McGonagall continued through the alphabet. Ron, Harry was happy to see, was placed with his brothers in Gryffindor just like he had wanted. Soon after that, the sorting was finally over.

The sorting was followed by a brief introduction by the headmaster Dumbledore, who didn't waste any time with long winded speeches and instead they started at once on the feast. Harry was impressed by the food, not just the quantity but the quality.

"Do you know how the food is prepared?" he asked his new classmates. "Is it made by magic or is it cooked?"

Unfortunately, all his new classmates in his immediate vicinity were first years, and their reactions to his question ranged from 'Good question' to 'you're Harry Potter!'. Harry supposed he would simply have to learn about it later and contented himself with filling his plate with a small bit of most everything. It was a novel experience, eating a nice meal that he hadn't had a hand in cooking. At his old school he'd always brought his own lunch (and appreciated it, as he'd seen what the other children were forced to eat), but he supposed that would be impossible at a boarding school.

The food was good, but it was hard to give it the attention it deserved because there were so many new people to observe. There were the other students of course, and the professors, but also the ghosts had come to sit with the students. There was one to a table, and the Hufflepuff ghost had settled itself in the gap between Susan and a boy Harry had learned to be a muggle-born named Justin. The ghost was quite large and without a corporal body he had ended up partly inside the two students. Susan had shrieked at his arrival and shoved up against Harry, knocking him into the boy on his other side. Justin almost ended up in an older boy's lap. No one seemed to mind, though some of the older students laughed, and they all just shifted over until the ghost had enough room to sit without having to sit inside someone else.

"Sorry," said the ghost, his voice somehow loud and far off at the same time. "I do apologize if I scared you."

"It's not that," Susan told him. "It's that you're like ice."

"Yeah," Justin agreed, though his voice was a bit squeaky, his eyes wide and face a bit pale. "I wasn't a bit scared." When the puddings arrived, neither Justin nor Susan seemed to want anything cold like the ice creams and went for the pies instead.

Harry had hundreds of questions buzzing in his head, but he was hesitant to ask. His own relations hated questions and Harry didn't want to be rude. Besides, he was full and sleepy and everything was so new that he found himself silently trying to pay attention to everything at once and almost forgetting that he could speak too. He wanted to know all about his new classmates, and the ghosts, and the professors, and every bit of the castle. So he listened to how Justin had been down for Eton before he got his Hogwarts letter, and how Rowena had an older brother named Roger who was in Ravenclaw and hoped to join the Quiditch team that year, and that Megan and Wayne both called themselves half-blood because Wayne's dad and Megan's grandparents were muggles, while Hannah's family was considered pureblood but she technically wasn't because of a muggle grandmother, and that Lisa almost hadn't come to Hogwarts because her mum thought it was a devil school, and Ian had a younger sister named Eleanor who was so upset about Ian getting to go to Hogwarts she managed to turn his entire trunk inside out with accidental magic and their parents were so pleased they got her the kneazle she had wanted forever.

Harry wanted to know what a kneazle was, but he never got the chance to ask because that was the moment when his forehead suddenly sent a sharp sensation through his head as though he had been stabbed by an ice pick. The feeling only lasted for half a second but it was startling enough that he forgot all about his previous questions.

"Are you alright, Harry?" Susan asked.

"It's fine," Harry answered quickly, and he went back to observing everyone and everything and wondering if perhaps he was just getting tired. His head felt stuffed full from all his new observations. His first day at Stonewall had been similar, though to a lesser degree, as he had taken in all the new classmates, teachers, and the layout of his school. Hogwarts, he suspected, would take him at least a week to fully conquer.

The other students seemed to be feeling similar as the roar of conversation throughout the hall was slowly dimming to a low hum, the students more preoccupied with finishing the last of the food or, particularly among the first years, trying not to nod off at the table. Harry didn't precisely feel like he was going to fall asleep right there as he was used to long days, but he felt the very rare and strange sensation of having had enough. He didn't want to ask questions, he didn't want to explore the castle, he didn't want to find out why that one dark haired professor with piercing eyes kept his attention divided between Slytherin table and Harry, and he didn't want to listen to what the headmaster had to say once the feast was finished. Harry had seen and learned enough for the day and now all he really wanted was someplace dark and quiet where there was nothing to see or learn. It was no wonder he had pains in his head.

The school song actually caught him by surprise, almost as though he had half fallen asleep after all without noticing while the headmaster was talking. Being startled was also a rare occurrence for Harry; usually he paid close attention to everything. He made sure to pay extra close attention when a prefect named George led them through a door and down some stairs, and then waited for a wall to change into yet another set of stairs, and then past a picture of a bowl of fruit and then a tapestry with a castle and down another corridor and finally they all stopped at an enormous painting of a table with some kind of instrument, a skull, a candle, and some pomegranates.

Here Prefect George stopped.

"This is the front entrance to Hufflepuff house," he said. "To open the door, you have to play the right tune on the mandolin. That's our password. The tune changes every month. If you can't remember the tune, you'll have to wait for someone who knows it."

That said, he reached towards the instrument in the painting and strummed across the strings once, then plucked each string once. The painted strings vibrated beneath his fingers, the sound soft but clear. Then the entire painting swung open like a door. He shut it again.

"Now you try."

The painting felt strange beneath his fingers when Harry took his turn. It didn't feel like strings anyway, but it also didn't really feel like a painting. Perhaps it was a bit like what a painting would feel like if real strings were glued on top of it and then painted over. He couldn't reach his fingers into the scene but the strings still had a reality to them that defied understanding. Playing the short tune Prefect George had shown them was easy enough. Even half asleep, Harry could easily follow something so simple.

The door swung open and Harry stepped through.

**Author's Note:** I've had half of this chapter sitting on my computer for ages and I've finally decided to just share what I've got, even if it is slightly shorter than the other chapters. Who knows when/if I'll ever get around to writing more. At least I got through the sorting. Where I was completely tempted to stick him some place like Slytherin just to contradict all the people who predicted Hufflepuff, but in the end I decided not. For one, they predicted that house for a reason and I saw much the same in this Harry. For another, I already had notes on the house from a different story. Besides, I like the symmetry. In cannon, his first real friend introduced his house and in this story the first person he met was Cedric.

So, here it is. Sorry, no confrontation with Snape. Maybe one day. No promises. Though this Harry is rather fun to write.


End file.
